Returnees, student-migrants and second chance learners: case studies of positional and transformative outcomes of Australian international education

Mobility as ‘becoming’: a Bourdieuian analysis of the factors shaping international student mobility

“…Therefore, both 'positional' and 'transformative' factors (Pyvis and Chapman 2007) seem imperative in shaping the students' decision to undertake overseas education. This research supports Robertson, Hoare, and Harwood's (2011) argument that positional and transformative motivations can be seen as being combined and interrelated factors underpinning individuals' decision to pursue international education rather than being seen as a 'binary' to classify their impetus. The students convert the social, cultural and economic capitals to which they have access into foreign qualifications.…”

Australian Employer Response to the Study‐Migration Pathway: The Quantitative Evidence 2007‐2011

“…We addressed this issue in depth by assessing former international students' early employment outcomes relative to domestic students (the first time such an analysis has been undertaken). As noted in a recent analysis, the value of Western degrees can be “reconfigured” when international students compete with domestic graduates holding the same qualifications, when “cultural and linguistic differences” may become a “liability” (Robertson, Hoare and Harwood, ). Given this, we explored the impact of qualification level, language background, source country and residential status on employment in eleven professions associated with highly variable levels of Australian demand: The main medical and allied health fields in which labour market demand was strong to 2011 (medicine, dentistry, nursing, pharmacy and physiotherapy); The over‐supplied fields in which international students have typically enrolled (business and commerce, accounting, and information technology); A field associated with highly variable labour market demand (engineering); and Two fields which are rarely studied but associated with modest international student flows (education and the law). …”

“…We addressed this issue in depth by assessing former international students' early employment outcomes relative to domestic students (the first time such an analysis has been undertaken). As noted in a recent analysis, the value of Western degrees can be "reconfigured" when international students compete with domestic graduates holding the same qualifications, when "cultural and linguistic differences" may become a "liability" (Robertson, Hoare and Harwood, 2011). Given this, we explored the impact of qualification level, language background, source country and residential status on employment in eleven professions associated with highly variable levels of Australian demand: 2…”

The Price of Being International

“…While prior literature consistently finds that language skills are closely associated with career outcomes of immigrants in the host country (Frank, 2013;Robertson, Hoare & Harwood, 2011), with lack of variables in NSRCG, this study was not able to consider IMRs' language skills and their association with career outcomes. The strong positive or negative effects of international status on career outcome measures in this study, therefore, may have been over (or under) estimated due to the incomplete controls of language capabilities of individuals.…”